Windows 10 as a Service, Free Upgrade for first year after launch but there’s a catch

At the next chapter of Windows 10 event, Microsoft has shared a lot of things about the future of Windows operating system. And first and foremost likeable thing is that Windows 10 will be free and available as Service to customers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 during the first year after launch.

At that large scale of adoption, Microsoft also thinks of Windows as a Service – like Office 365 – to reduce the OS fragmentation, which will benefit consumers, developers as well as enterprise customers, bringing “more personal computing” down the road.

Terry Myerson, Microsoft Executive Vice President of Operating Systems, explained, “Windows 10 is the first step to an era of more personal computing. This vision framed our work on Windows 10, where we are moving Windows from its heritage of enabling a single device – the PC – to a world that is more mobile, natural and grounded in trust.”

So all eligible users will be able to perform a free upgrade to Windows 10 via Windows Update starting the first day of the release of the new OS. However, none of the officials mentioned how much they would charge for an upgrade after the first year of the launch.